Observatory on AI’s Environmental Footprint

The global push towards artificial intelligence (AI) adoption has raised profound questions regarding its environmental implications. As AI technologies rely on increasing computing power and become more widespread, their energy consumption and carbon footprint, as well as water consumption have grown significantly, making it crucial to better understand their environmental impacts.

The Observatory on AI’s Environmental Footprint is a project led by the AI and Society Institute at ENS, with the sponsoring of Capgemini. It aims to advance research on the assessment of the environmental footprint of AI and identify avenues to mitigate its environmental toll.

The project contributes to four dimensions of existing research on the environmental footprint of AI:

  1. Assessing the environmental implications of data center infrastructures renewal.
  2. Evaluating the indirect effects of AI (the impact that result from AI’s application) on the limits of quantification.
  3. Broadening the scopes of evaluation and impact indicators.
  4. Identifying relevant mitigation strategies

Scientific direction:

  • Aurélie Bugeau, Professor in Computer Science, LaBRI, Université de Bordeaux, junior member of Institut Universitaire de France (IUF)
  • Anne-Laure Ligozat, Professor in Computer Science at the LISN (Paris Saclay) and ENSIIE (Paris XI)

Project team:

  • Théophile Lenoir, AI and Society Institute
  • Constance de Leusse, AI and Society Institute

 

Mis à jour le 3/10/2025